At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

My wife borrowed my FIL's smoker and smoked 6 Boston butt pork roasts this past weekend. The pork was on sale. Five of them are now in the freezer. We have been feasting on the 6th pork roast. There are few things I like better to eat. Once we finish our back porch and deck, I get to buy a smoker of my own. I'm looking forward to be able to have some back porch barbecues.

 

[Obed]

I finished installing the shutters. Installing the second set of dining room shutters on the stone went much better than the first set. If you remember, I drilled holes in the stone for the first set of shutters because I was using the large diameter plastic pins to fasten the shutters to the wall. Because those pins are visible from a distance, I did not want them to be unevenly placed so I could not fasten the pins in the mortar joints.



For the second set of shutters, I fastened the shutters with screws instead of the large plastic pins. The screws are not easily visible from a distance so it didn't matter much if they were unevenly spaced. Thus, I could drill holes in the mortar joints. The screws came with the shutters and have painted screw heads that match the shutters. I inserted plastic anchors in the holes and screwed the screws into the anchors. That method worked fairly well and was much easier than drilling into the stone. In addition, I can easily remove the shutters if I ever need to for some unforeseen reason.

It sounds like my wife is going to want shutters on the upstairs windows also. That job will have to get put in the "queue".

Also, you can see some dead grass in the yard. My wife used RoundUp to kill the weeds that we believe was caused by weed seeds in the straw we used when we planted grass last fall. She is going to re-seed much of the yard (without using straw this time).

 

[Dishpointer]

Looking good Obed! At least you won't have to deal with rock/bricks/mortar on the upstairs shutters, just the elevation issue.

 

[brin]

My wife borrowed my FIL's smoker and smoked 6 Boston butt pork roasts this past weekend. The pork was on sale. Five of them are now in the freezer. We have been feasting on the 6th pork roast. There are few things I like better to eat. Once we finish our back porch and deck, I get to buy a smoker of my own. I'm looking forward to be able to have some back porch barbecues.

I do so love slow smoked Pulled Pork Butt and those your wife made look just perfect....I can smell them and taste them clear down here in Georgia....Yum ! If they go on sale here , I will do the same thing...my Mrs. will help.

 

[Obed]

The new cat is a female; I hope she has been fixed. I think she may be on the older side based on the observation that she moves around at a slow walk most of the time. She definitely likes people and doesn't mind being around our daughter. She has shown the ability to be a little tempermental. A couple of times she acted like she might bite me; being familiar with cats I recognized the signs. I wonder if she may have bitten someone at her old home then got discarded.

 

[Obed]

Looking good Obed! At least you won't have to deal with rock/bricks/mortar on the upstairs shutters, just the elevation issue.

The upstairs shutters will (eventually) be installed over vinyl siding. I'm assuming people just run screws directly into the vinyl siding. It seems like the siding would leak through the screw holes. Maybe it's not a big deal but I am pretty careful about wanting to keep water away from the walls. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Obed

 

[dstig1]

Vinyl siding is meant to leak and loose enough to let out any water that gets behind it. Especially if you have house wrap under the vinyl, don't worry about it. You could dab some caulk there before driving the screws if you really want to...

 

[dave1949]

My wife borrowed my FIL's smoker and smoked 6 Boston butt pork roasts this past weekend. The pork was on sale. Five of them are now in the freezer. We have been feasting on the 6th pork roast. There are few things I like better to eat. Once we finish our back porch and deck, I get to buy a smoker of my own. I'm looking forward to be able to have some back porch barbecues.

Very tasty looking!

I used to buy 30 lb boneless pork butts at a butcher, well they were packaged in 30 lb sections is more accurate. It's a great cut of pork for homemade sausage because the fat and lean are both there to work with. You could make links and smoke them in your smoker! I just make mine up in patties to freeze, no nitrates. It's hard to beat sausage seasoned to your taste and as lean as you like it.

I may have to dig out my meat grinder

What type of smoker are looking at? I don't have one and every time I look at them, it seems like there are several more choices. Most seem to be cooker-smokers.

 

[Obed]

Very tasty looking!

I used to buy 30 lb boneless pork butts at a butcher, well they were packaged in 30 lb sections is more accurate. It's a great cut of pork for homemade sausage because the fat and lean are both there to work with. You could make links and smoke them in your smoker! I just make mine up in patties to freeze, no nitrates. It's hard to beat sausage seasoned to your taste and as lean as you like it.

I may have to dig out my meat grinder

What type of smoker are looking at? I don't have one and every time I look at them, it seems like there are several more choices. Most seem to be cooker-smokers.

My FIL's smoker is a Brinkmann Gourmet Outdoor Cooker - Grill, Smoker, Steamer. It may be the same as this one ( Gourmet Charcoal Smoker & Grill (852-7080-0) | Brinkmann ) . It has a place on the bottom for charcoal. On top of the charcoal sits a pan of water. Above the water are two racks on which you place your meat.

 

[Obed]

My wife put signs out on the nearby streets to see if we could locate the yellow cat's owner.



Yesterday we found the owner. A young guy recently moved into a house about a mile away. He went out of town for a few days and the cat disappeared. He's going out of town again this weekend so my wife offered to keep the cat until he gets back. I was getting attached to the cat.